Cutting it Close Read online

  Douglas' eyes went around the room. He’d never been to a real barber shop before. His Mom always cut his hair in the kitchen. There were so many sights, sounds, and activities happening all at once that his little eyes darted back and forth trying to take it all in. He did as he had been trained and shook all the men’s hands like his Daddy taught him. The man in the white barber jacket he recognized from when his Mom and Dad had the party at the house with all the good food. One man helped him up in the chair as a cloth was draped around his neck. Douglas watched his father take a seat in a funny shaped chair that made noises as he removed his shoes, rolling up his pants legs before sticking his feet in a tub of blue water.

  “Daddy, what is that?” Douglas asked.

  “I am going to get a pedicure,” Thurston responded.

  “Okay, Daddy, but what is that?” Douglas asked again.

  “I am going to have my toenails cut and the rough shaved off the bottom of my feet, son,” he said with a smile.

  Douglas watched the man with red looking skin take a seat in front of his father. He had a cart with all sorts of gadgets on it, and he lifted one of Thurston’s feet and began to scrape the bottom. Douglas swallowed hard.

  “Daddy,” he said. “Do I need a pepicure, too?”

  The sweetness of the moment was shattered as the front door opened, bringing a gust of sour air along with two very tense bodies. A woman in her mid-thirties, along with her teen son, burst into the shop in the middle of what seemed like a heated debate, which escalated far too quickly for anyone’s convenience. The young man, full of mouth and angst, immediately earned Omari’s attention when he raised his voice at his mother. The energy of the room shifted with the young man’s next words.

  “You can be so stupid, Mom! I have told you over and over again, I didn’t want a damned haircut. I don’t need a haircut. I don’t even know why you’re wasting my time,” the boy said.

  The hairs on the back of Omari’s neck stood up. Every man in the shop’s eyes went to the boy’s mother.

  “You are getting a haircut. You are not walking around here looking like some reject from a 90’s hip-hop group,” she said adamantly.

  “No. It’s my damned hair,” the boy said trying to storm past her. “And ain’t shit you can do about it.”

  Belly Bob sucked in enough air to refill his enormous gullet three times. The boy attempted to step around his mother, but she grabbed him by the arm. The child’s hand went up into the air to strike her, but the blow was halted by Omari.

  “Get your damned hands off me, man!” the boy yelled.

  “You. Will. Not. Disrespect. Your. Mother. In. My. Business,” Omari said with emphasis through gritted teeth.

  “Man, fuc...,” were the only words the boy got out of his mouth.

  Omari had a fist full of the boy’s shirt as he lifted him from the ground with one hand and pinned him to the wall, his thin body hanging limply. Thurston was up, wet feet and all, standing next to the boy’s mother preventing her from interfering in what was about to be the first lesson in manhood from Omari Cromwell.

  Thurston ushered the boy’s mother to a seat and handed her a magazine. The look on his face cautioned the woman to hold her tongue. The lawyer in Thurston came out as he thought about the boy’s mother being able to sue Omari for assault on a minor among other things, but the young man needed to be taken into hand.

  “You are going to sit down in that chair and I am going to modify this haircut to something you and your mother can both live with,” he told the boy.

  His eyes went to the boy’s mother as he lowered the young man back to the floor. “Because you have disrespected me, my business, and your mother, I want you back here at the end of the day to sweep my shop and clean the mirrors and bathrooms,” he told the boy.

  “I ain’t doin’ shit,” the boy said with a great deal of bluster in his voice.

  Omari picked up the clippers and made one pass down the center of the boy’s head, leaving a wide path of hair sticking up on both sides of the mutilated high top dreaded fade. “If you want that cut fixed, you are going to have to come back,” he said as he stepped around the chair. He handed a hat to the boy’s mother.

  “We close at 6:30. He needs to be back here no later than six,” Omari said to her.

  Her mouth was moving, but he placed his hand on her elbow, almost shoving her out the door.

  “Well, damn,” Mr. Johnny said. “Do you think she’s gonna bring him back?”

  Omari motioned Johnathan over to his seat. “No doubt in my mind.”

  Thurston spoke up, “That was a big risk, Omari. She could sue you if she wanted to...”

  “She won’t. She’s been looking for someone to help her with that kid. At the rate he’s going, the only lawyer she’ll be calling will be to get him out of jail,” Omari said.

  “I don’t know if you can help that one,” Belly Bob said.

  “Well, first, she’s gotta find out why he is so mad at her,” Omari said to the men. “Then, she needs to work on his anger.”

  Thurston looked at Douglas. He knew what his cousin was saying.

  “You sure about this?” Dirty Red asked.

  Omari looked at Douglas as well. He smiled at the boy, who watched the whole scene with curiosity. “Yes. I can only try,” Omari said. “He deserves someone to believe in him and give him a chance to be better.”

  Belly Bob said the obvious, “That kid is spoiled rotten. His shoes cost more than my last twenty haircuts! She ain’t coming back here.”

  The conversation shifted in the shop, heating up the debate on single mothers raising boys, with Thurston and Thomas in the middle of the fray, interjecting commentary from statistics and facts with the barber shop crew arguing realities of local teens that became mothers who turned sour on life. As the hours passed, lunch arrived with no fanfare as Thomas took a seat to begin his pedicure and Thurston sat in the barber chair for his trim. The debate raged on well after lunch with no real resolution, just a spirited discussion between men about a changing community.

  Omari remained quiet as he worked on cutting the hair of his family members with only one real question in his mind. His gaze turned towards the window as he peered out before starting on Thurston’s haircut. Would she bring the boy back at six?

  Chapter 3 So Embarrassing

  Chantal Mooreland was madder than a wet cat at her son Cody’s behavior. His anger and aggression as of late spoke of a deeper issue with her only child, but each question only sparked more frustration from him. The cursing was something new that she absolutely hated and physically pushed her over to her wit’s end. No matter how hard she tried to explain, their relationship as mother and son had reached an impasse at which there was no bridge or way around it. She was losing her son.

  The ride to his school was completed in silence as he sat with his arms folded across his chest, puffed up, pissed off, and out of words to express the emotions taking over his 13-year-old body. Hilston Prep was an exclusive private school on the Upper East Side that didn’t have much tolerance for anything, let alone a black child from a single parent household with anger issues. The hair style he wore was out of school regulations, which was what prompted the stop by Omari’s, hoping the barber would help her find a compromise before taking Cody to lacrosse practice.

  They arrived at the school with Chantal slowing down the vehicle before coming to a complete stop. “Cody, we have to...” she said.

  “I don’t have to do shit,” the boy said.

  In her heart, she wanted to reach over and choke him until he passed out only to then wake the boy up only to choke him until he passed out again.

  “Either you learn to listen and work this out with me or you will learn from a jail cell with some man telling you when to wake up, go to sleep, eat, or take a dump,” she told him.

  Cody cut his eyes at his mother. Anger flared from every fiber of his being. He was so angry his eyes had turned red like a mini demon about to spit sulph
ur and brimstone.

  “You let that man put his hands on me! You let that man do this to my head,” he yelled, pointing at his hair. “This is so embarrassing. Now these prissy ass kids have something else to laugh at!”

  “So you don’t want to talk about you raising your hand to hit me. I don’t know what you are thinking,” she said. “But we will go back after practice so he can fix the cut, and you are going to apologize to him and to me.”

  “And if I don’t?” Cody asked.

  “This fancy private school goes away and off to military school you go. You don’t want to be bothered with me...I can easily ship you off and come see you at the holidays. It would be a helluva lot easier than what you are putting me through now when I haven’t done anything to you but try to give you a good life,” Chantal said.

  “You make that sound too easy. You just get rid of stuff that you don’t want to be bothered with...is that what you did with my Dad?”

  She couldn’t answer. Cody opened the car door, giving her a bird’s eye view of the back of his head. His small back was rigid as he walked across the field to the locker room to change for practice.

  “Lord, order my steps,” she said quietly to the steering wheel. Practice would go on for a few hours before the boys would have lunch, followed by watching tapes of matches of professional lacrosse games. It was a great time to head to the office to catch up on a few things before she drove back to pick him up. An office that was the only place of late where she felt like she knew what she was doing.

  Chantal Mooreland loved her career. As a forensic accountant, she was one of, if not the best, in the business. Her reputation preceded her in legal cases of money laundering or shady corporate executives trying to hide assets from their spouses. Fresh out of college, she took her first job at Biddle, Banks and Coates, working for a charismatic man whom she admired and respected. It had never occurred to her to be interested in a man outside of her race, but Brett Coates was everything a girl could want in a man. She started at the firm as an intern, but was personally hired by Mr. Coates. The firm landed a major legal case which required long hours, tons of research, and a keen eye for detail.

  Personal career tutelage by Mr. Coates started with dinner. Next, working late to demonstrate her commitment to the job and company was requested. Chantal loved numbers, so it did not matter much to her. Outside of school and work, she didn’t have much of a life or many friends. The Murphy case had become all consuming.

  An error had been made by one of the associates that could have changed the course of the outcome of the case if Chantal had not found the blunder. Brett was so thankful, he rewarded her with a pair of diamond earrings presented to her in front of the whole team. Chantal, visibly embarrassed by such a gift, accepted it with some reservations. She never wore the 1 karat studs to the office, something which did not escape Brett’s notice. As a matter of fact, little escaped his notice when it came to Chantal Mooreland.

  Brett Coates segued into becoming her mentor. At 22 years old and fresh out of college, under his guidance, she aced the CPA exam. He encouraged her to start graduate school and even underwrote the cost of her tuition at Columbia University. She was twenty-three when she found out she was carrying his child.

  In the same week, Chantal also found out he was married. It broke her heart when she also learned his wife was expecting as well. The desire to not converse on her current predicament was respected by everyone in the office. They didn’t ask. She was not going to tell.

  The arrangement was clear. If she kept the child, she went away. He would pay her to do so. Brett wanted nothing to do with his son. Chantal didn’t care. It was a very hard year finishing grad school and being pregnant, but she did it. At Columbia, several classes were shared with Amber Carlisle and Malika Burns, smart women, but not very personable. That didn’t matter to Chantal either. You didn’t need to be personable to be an accountant.

  The Brett Coates fund in part started Mooreland, Carlisle, and Burns, a firm that quickly outbid Biddle, Banks, and Coates on many cases. Her mentor was now her competition. Several times over the next few years, she sat across from him in court, never acknowledging their child or a prior relationship with him. He never asked about Cody and she never had any news to share with the man.

  “Chantal, you are so cold,” Brett said one day after court. “In five years you have never warmed back up to me.”

  “You taught me well, Mr. Coates, but most of all, you taught me how cruel the world can be,” she said with no smile on her face. “I am just showing you I am a quick study.”

  “And the child?” he asked.

  “His name is Cody Mooreland,” she said. “Have a nice day, Mr. Coates.” She walked away from him, not looking back. She would never look back. The last thing either she or her son needed was a man in their life who was too selfish to care about a child he created.

  She didn’t deserve that kind of treatment. Neither did Cody.

  Omari cautioned the men not to sweep up the shop. If the boy came back, that would be his task. If he didn’t come back, it would be a late night for him. It mattered little since the shop was his baby. Ten years ago, fresh out of college, he used some of the money he’d gotten for his college graduation to make the down payment to buy it from Mr. Johnny. The shop, which sat in the same block as the Apollo Theater, was prime real estate. The taxes, however, were a beast unto themselves and Mr. Johnny wasn’t able to maintain the building. He happily sold it to a Cromwell.

  Ellington Rothschild Cromwell, the second oldest of the Cromwell children, was a scholar of sociology and anthropology. His eldest brother, Thurston the III, found his educational pursuits to be trivial and a waste of time. Ellington cared little for money but thrived on obtaining knowledge through the pursuit of understanding of cultures. He traveled often, studying afro-Caribbean and African cultures. During his graduate studies at Harvard, he’d journeyed to a small town outside of Senegal where he met and fell in love with a small East African woman named Mareeka who bore him two beautiful children, Omari and Taylah.

  As a professor of Sociology, Ellington took a teaching position at NYU but moved into the middle of the poorest block in Harlem. Encouraging his neighbors, Ellington wrote grants that funded neighborhood improvement projects, changing the neighborhood one block at a time. Harlem was his life. The children in the neighborhood became his village.

  Omari Cromwell was a great deal like his father. His barbershop was a staple of the community, a lifeblood that coursed through the veins of Harlem. Each child, each young man that walked through the door, was touched by the attention he paid to them by listening.

  “You got a gift with them kids,” Dirty Red told him.

  “Yes. I only hope it will work on one in particular,” he said as his eyes went to the clock.

  The five o’clock hour was approaching. The shop closed at six. Just in case they returned on time, he placed a call to order some dinner for the three of them. Deep inside, he hoped they would return.

  Omari didn’t know why - he just hoped they would.

  Chapter 4 Let’s Get It Done

  In the dimming hours of Saturday afternoon, Omari Cromwell watched the clock like a child on the last day of school.

  “Ain’t no need of staring at that clock. She ain’t coming back,” Belly Bob said with a chuckle.

  Mr. Johnny stood up from his worn barber chair. His hand adjusted the wire-rimmed glasses, which gave him the appearance of someone of great wisdom. Yellowed teeth from too much coffee and bad hygiene were a tell-tale juxtaposition against the blue-black skin. “Oh, she’s coming back all right! I’ll bet you $10,” he said to Belly Bob.

  “Oh, I will take the bet,” Belly Bob said with a huff.

  The doorbell jangled as Chantal walked through the door with a still somewhat pissed off Cody.

  “No fair, you old swindler,” Belly Bob called out.

  “You look out the window all day long - seems like you would have turned a
round to see for yourself, you beer-bellied boob!” Mr. Johnny said as he took the ten spot from Belly Bob’s hand.

  “Good night, gentlemen,” Omari said to the men.

  Amidst grumblings and being nosey, Omari ushered the staff out of the door. Chantal watched Omari closely as he flipped the closed sign on the entrance locking them in. Her heart thudded against her chest as she worried over and over again that she had made a mistake coming back here. The fear of exposing her son to someone who would harm his self-esteem weighed heavily on her, but by the same token, she had researched Omari Cromwell and he had a great reputation. Please. Please. Don’t let me down.

  Omari looked at Cody, giving the boy a smile.

  “Let’s start over,” he said to Cody. “I owe you an apology for doing that to your hair. I am sorry for that, but I am not sorry for manhandling you. That you deserved.”

  Cody stared Omari square in the face. “I deserved it. You’I didn’t deserve what you did to my head. The fellas busted on me all day. Somebody called me lawnmower head and Side Show Bob. I don’t even know who that is.”

  Omari’s back was still to Chantal as he extended his hand to the boy. “I’m Omari Cromwell. I own the place,” he said to Cody.

  The handshake was accepted.

  “I am Cody Mooreland,” he said.

  Omari turned to face the boy’s mother, also extending his hand to her for a formal greeting.

  “I am Chantal Mooreland,” she said. A weak attempt at a smile came to the corner of her lips.

  “Okay,” Omari spoke. “Now that’s out of the way, Cody, let’s get it done. I want you to clean the mirrors, the bathroom, sweep the floors, and change out the germicide in the jars. After that we will have some dinner, then I will cut your hair.”

  On cue, a tap came at the front door, announcing the arrival of the food.

  Chantal spoke up, “Allow me to get this.”

  “Nope,” Omari said as he paid the delivery man for the food.